[ saturday, december 22 ]

you know, it's not like I've really tried that, yet. how does one get in touch with time, anyway?

(talking to myself keeps me happy. yes. shh.)
[  00:41  •  +  ]

the (perhaps) irony, of course, is that so much has happened in the last week that I could have filled several hundred paragraphs with it, but the finitude of time and the looming of deadlines has left us with just these skinny little sentences, anemic from the necessity of unwilling omissions and barely better than placeholders to remind me that time won't stop no matter how nicely I ask it.
[  00:23  •  +  ]

I've been working on my astronomy final since about two-thirty this afternoon, and I'm not even the tiniest bit upset about it really, because it's astronomy... (I do wish I were a little better at math, still).
[  00:13  •  +  ]

[ friday, december 21 ]

no, I am not done yet. yes, this is ridiculous.
[  18:12  •  +  ]

[ thursday, december 20 ]

I have a nice room, soft clothes, good music, and cranberry juice. it's pretty amazing, then, how completely not fun this is. I'm so spoiled.
[  10:43  •  +  ]

[ wednesday, december 19 ]

you know. at least when I get so overwhelmed by anxiety that I have to lie trembling underneath a blanket to keep my heart from beating out of its cage, I can do it surrounded by people I trust and I don't have to worry about being embarassed on top of everything else.

actually, aside from my minor meltdown and the ensuing hours of trying to recover (shaking on the floor, shaking on the porch, shaking in front of the fire), today wasn't so bad. it smelled like cold and the shadow-side of the moon was brightened by earthshine. a seven-year-old read to me from the wizard of oz popup book. I did eventually stop shaking, did a little bit of physics, and when I got home half an hour ago I found my door covered with friendly messages.

four days, three exams, and nine other things on my to do list. it could happen. it will. something.
[  05:17  •  +  ]

[ tuesday, december 18 ]

the libraries and corridors and the dining hall are all filled with an air of palpable stress, anxiety, what have you, ohmygod exams and work and ahh! people whimpering about what they've failed or are going to fail, calculating points and hours and page numbers, and somehow the amount of time left is decreasing exponentially faster than the amount of work left. and as much as I know how ridiculous it is to be completely strung out about things as invisible in the big picture as analytical dynamics finals and semester grades and my inability to do algebra right, I still am. I told my father that I am not going to flunk out but truthfully I am terrified of this and I think it's entirely possible that I will fail, and this time it won't be so much because I am a slacker as because I am just not good at this. tensors and euler angles and eigenfrequencies and so on and no I don't understand it so why bother pretending I do? it takes me hours, and hours and hours and hours and days really, before I understand any of these concepts deeply enough to be able to turn around and re-explain them, and honestly there have been more concepts this semester than hours for me to work on them. and that is because I am not as good at this as I should be, or as I'm supposed to be, or something. so what do I do?

at dinner tonight I was trying to tell a sophomore who was convinced that she had just failed her microeconomics exam (and thus the entire course) that she probably knew more than she thought, that the professor would recognize the beginnings of understanding even if she didn't get the right answers, and that even if she did fail the exam she would probably be okay in the course as a whole. I said the words but I felt like a hypocrite, because people say those things to me and I just want to scream at them, because they have no idea what a complete moron I am. I listened, though, and I heard similar conversations happening behind us, across the room, at the other end of the table... all these people who think they're stupid, and they're not. they're not at all. you know what? we go to swarthmore. and we are smart, really. we're college students and we do stupid things and can't always see through our shrouds of shortsightedness and we write bad poetry and fill ourselves with idealism and disillusionment and we don't appreciate our youth but fuck it, we are smart and we deserve to be here.

why can't I replace we with I? I know I'm not a terrific student, but I've known that since well before I even applied to college, and it didn't bother me then. I heard people say that it was hard to go from being one of the brightest to just (or even below) average, but I didn't really believe them. it is hard, though, and it's hard enough being the worst physics major in my class that it would be a lie to say that didn't have a little bit to do with my major switch, and they say that anywhere else it would have been an a but it's not like I'm getting a bunch of b-pluses either, and sometimes it is really difficult to remember that I'm smart. I'm smart. I'm smart. dammit, I am smart.

it is really hot in my room, and I'm having some problems with bloody noses and punctuation.
[  00:29  •  +  ]

[ monday, december 17 ]

sometimes I imagine people as dolls, all worn and frayed at the edges by time and love, but still beautiful and soft. I wish I could sit them against the wall on the edge of my bed and just watch them, so I could always see that they were safe and content. once in a while they could sit on my lap, tucked into the corner between my arm and my chest, sheltered from the surging whelm of the world. people aren't dolls, I know, nor should they be, but once in a while I would like to be less helpless.

my favorite pair of pajamas is made of blue and magenta and white plaid flannel. they were a christmas present from my grandparents five years ago, and at the time I almost didn't know what to make of them because my grandparents had never given me such a useful present before. I wore them every day as long as the weather wasn't too warm, and even then sometimes I would wear the bottoms alone with a tank top. when I was a freshman, I used to put them on every day after I took my post-rugby-practice shower, and I could often be found padding around the libraries late at night wearing them. last year they got a rip along the back of one leg, and we patched it up with a piece of pink fabric. eventually, though, the threads just started breaking all along the seams, and finally they got too full of holes to wear. I still brought them back to school with me this year, just because. last week I put them on and, rather then shove them back into my drawer after I realized that no, I really couldn't walk around the hall in them, I put my sweatpants on over them, so that I had a layer of flannel inside my layer of cotton. I've been wearing them that way ever since, and the stress of rolling around on the floor amidst piles of schoolwork and running up and down stairs has reduced them to little more than tatters. without my sweatpants I doubt they would even stay on; I can feel the edges of broken threads flapping against my thighs, trying to fall down to my ankles. it's kind of pathetic, really, but I don't want to take them out of my sweatpants because I know I'll have to throw them out when I do.

but people, people are stronger than just cotton, and I have to trust them not to fall apart, even when my love for them is so fierce and full that I think it might break my ribcage. I trust them. but I'm still not washing my sweatpants, yet.
[  04:33  •  +  ]

[ sunday, december 16 ]

last week on talk of the nation, they asked: is college too easy?
last night on the phone, my father asked: so are you going to flunk out?

(dot dot dot)
[  16:52  •  +  ]